Watch the 1960s unfold day by day. A news feed for what happened 46 years ago today in the Cold War, politics, science, the arts, religion, leisure and society.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

October 8, 1960: New Republic Cautions on Cuba, National Review Says Nixon has 'Liberal Tendencies'

"Cuban-American relations have now deteriorated to that unfortunate state in which both sides willfully misunderstand and misinterpret the other's actions," Samuel Shapiro writes in The New Republic today. "As there simply is no feasible way to overthrow the present regime [in Cuba], it is to be hoped that the administration will refrain from any further futile action or talk about 'getting tough' with Castro.... [T]he next president will have to use a lot more tact, skill and imagination if he is to extricate us from the real potential dangers we face both in Cuba and throughout the rest of Latin America."

The National Review took Vice President Richard Nixon to task in its issue published on this day in 1960 for his "liberal tendencies." In domestic affairs, "the news from the conservative point of view ... on the few occasions when he turned to concrete issues ... was all bad." Nixon is for more public utility generating plants, more government involvement in agriculture and more federal aid for education. "Though he always tried ... to leave the impression that the Nixon Welfare State would entail a little less state control and a little more freedom than the Democratic version, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Nixon meant to head a substantially bigger government than the one over which Eisenhower currently presides."

The magazine also criticized Nixon for his performance at the United Nations, writing that his reaction to events there was to "prate about 'experience' and the virtues of freedom over communism," ignoring important issues raised during the session.

In other news:

The Arab Petroleum Congress will meet in Beirut. On the agenda will be limiting production to protect prices and increasing the share of revenue that goes to the oil-producing states.

The French government wants the right to veto the use of atomic weapons by the United States, President de Gaulle said today.

Secretary of State Christian Herter met at the United Nations today with the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka. They discussed a possible increase in U.S. aid.

A jury in New York returned perjury charges against 20 TV quiz show contestants, including Charles Van Doren.